Saturday, 6 August 2016

DCC Campaign Update: It's The Human People's Front!

In this week's session, the PCs started out lost in the woods outside of Thelos, the Tholian empire's capital. First, we had to deal with a new player, and a couple of players who'd missed the last pair of sessions getting back into the game.

So:

-The new 0-levels are a Human collaborator (formerly serving the Minotaur ruling class of Tholia), a Dwarven Hoarder, and a Boat Swine.

-"Prioritizing the order of how much you want your 0-levels to survive is a weird game of fuck/marry/kill"
"Look at the poor fishman, he's almost level 2 and he's only got a ragged pair of trousers. He's led a rough life!"

-"The fucking 0-level hoarder got to start with more stuff than me!"

-"so one of your guys is a human collaborator... is he French?"
"not necessarily!"
"Dude, his equipment includes a 'huge bag of wine'!"

-"Bill the Elf can take many forms!"
"I'm like Jesus."
"No... that's what they say about the devil."

-"The thing you have to understand about the Fishman is that he's self-aware. One of a few people we've seen in this world who realize that they're actually just characters in an RPG"

-"in the first ten minutes of the game you lost two of your spells for the rest of the day, trying to cast them at a rock."

-"The last thing you remember was being on a cart with a bunch of dutchmen, heading toward Yeti Country. You stopped to take a piss, heard a TARDIS noise, and then everything went blank."
"How many times has that happened, huh?"

-The Dwarven Hoarder has a cow, and a ten-foot-pole. The Pole's name is Wojtek, and he takes care of the cow.

-The Magic Chicken detects the nearby presence of Bill the Elf, and also the Fish-man who's name escapes him.
"I have a name! Why doesn't anyone ever remember my name?? I'm more than just 'the fishman'!!"

-unfortunately, as the chicken rushes toward Bill to give his message, he passes Bill's "Sequester" barrier and explodes.

-"You blew up the chicken!!"
"Well, it looked quite menacing."

-"Loscha, I'm so glad to see you again!"
"You called me Loscha!"
"Oh, I'm sorry.. fishman! I'm so glad to see you again!"
"God damnit!"

-"So, now that we're all back together again, can we go get the Libram of the Ten Spheres?"
"Oh, you'd like that wouldn't you?"

-The PCs that toilet humor does not translate well into Minotaur culture.

-To prevent Bill from getting the Libram of the Ten Spheres, Ack'Basha betrays him by sending a covert message to the Azure Wizards while Bill is in a Sezrekhan-induced trance.

-Suddenly, a minotaur comes out of nowhere and attacks! This confirms that while the underwear factory has been destroyed, any minotaurs who still have the cursed underwear will continue to appear to attack them.

-The Minotaur slain, the fishman wants to eat him; but Ack'basha foils him by raising the minotaur-corpse as a zombie.

-"Are we just going to keep going and leave Bill in his trance in the forest??"
"I'm sure Bill can take care of himself."
"It's the forest I'm worried for!"

-"Bill really wants to get the Libram; Sezrekhan has cursed him with a geas that's going to get worse if he doesn't."
"And what do we do if he decides he doesn't want to see the Minotaur Emperor with us? I mean... he is our ride.."

-Ack'basha and Bill make an agreement, where Bill will help the party to expose Pertinax as a reactionary plotting against the Minotaur emperor, and then the whole party will immediately go with Bill to get the Libram. Since they don't trust each other even a tiny bit, they draw up a contract. The Dwarf Hoarder acts as the notary.

-"The Dwarf can manage our contract; dwarves are very good at contract law!"
"That's racist!"

-"so, basically, the next time Bill and Ack'basha try to take each other out, they're going to need lawyers?"

-"Remember the last time we tried to split up the party? Bill's group all died!"
"So did all of yours, Ack'basha."

-"Any time Ack'basha or anyone kills Bill, he comes back in a new body. He's had like five already."
"He's the closest thing this setting has to a fucking Time Lord!"

-That night, the party is attacked by six giant forest owls! They swoop in, swiftly killing both the cow and the Pole!

-They also drop the Dwarf and the (new) Boatswine very quickly
"Oh no! The owls have possibly killed the two people directly responsible for ruining my life!"

-Bill the Elf tries out his new spell, magic missile; unfortunately, it comes with a mercurial effect, causing him to slip into the ethereal plane for 1d6+1 rounds every time he casts it. While there, he's invisible and intangible, but also cannot affect anything in the material world.
"So, he's in the Neutral Zone?"

-The owls drop over half the party; ironically, only the human collaborator ends up dying (plus the cow, and the Pole). The Dwarf and Boatswine who ruined the collaborator's life survived. Zeke Bodean, as usual, was untouched.
"The Lord has protected me once again!"
"Fuck's sake!"

-The next morning the PCs carry on through the forest, but they run into an ambush from a group of rebels. Luckily, Morris the bandit was part of a rebel group, though not this one.
"Which ones are you?"
"We're the Campaign for a Free Humanity!"
"Oh. I was in the People's Front for Humanity"
"Well, I guess that's alright. As long as you're not part of the fucking Human People's Front!"

-"Wait, you're the rebel group who destroyed the Underwear Factory?"
"Yes! And now we have to destroy the remaining underwear supplies!"
"...seriously?"

-The various rebel groups have serious ideological differences, but they're all united in two things: hating the Minotaur oppressors, and despising the Human People's Front.

-The Campaign for a Free Humanity help the PCs get to the capital, ruining Ack'basha's plan to keep delaying in order to buy time for the notoriously indecisive Azure Wizards to get to the Libram before Bill.
They also have a plan to help the PCs get to the Emperor's palace, but then on (apparently ill-thought-out) divine advice from G.O.D., Ack'basha decides that it's better to try to walk up to the front gate.
When they're almost in front of the heavily-guarded palace, there's a flash of light and an enraged Minotaur appears and starts to attack them. They're forced to murder the Minotaur, in front of the elite palace guard.
"Cheese it!!"

-The party flees through the narrow Old-City streets, and Ack'basha is forced to release his Minotaur and Polack Zombies in order to cause a distraction for them to get to a safehouse.

-In the safehouse, the gang tries to plan their next move.
"Dude, I'll just teleport onto the roof of the palace and throw a bunch of grenades all over the place!"
"This is how we know when a plan has gone completely to shit:
step 1- teleport
step 2- 'throw a bunch of grenades'
step 3- ?
step 4- Profit!"

-The group decides momentarily to say 'fuck it', and take off in pursuit of the Libram (against the virulent protests and accusations of contract-breaking coming from Ack'basha). They all cram into the safehouse's tiny bathroom to teleport away. But once there, they keep debating until Ack'basha somehow manages to convince them that they must deal with this Minotaur situation first.

-The Minotaur Civil Police raid the safehouse. The PCs are hiding in the secret attic again, and they aren't detected, but the whole situation allows for some Life-of-Brian-based humor.

-It gets out in the news that everyone is looking for Ack'basha, who has been identified as having joined the anti-Minotaur resistance.

-Spending the night hiding in the attic, Ack'basha schemes to betray Bill. Chu schemes to betray Ack'Basha. The Fishman fumes that after ages in the party no one knows his real name. The newbies question whether they've made a terrible life choice in joining this party. Bill finally decides that he's just going to walk up to the police and ask to speak to Pertinax.

-"If you're really going to go do this, however you do it, just don't tell them you're Bill the Elf!"
"Yes, I too would not recommend that."
"That's actually good advice as a rule in general."

-Bill leaves the safehouse and almost immediately runs into police. He surprises everyone by not immediately blurting out that he's Bill the Elf. Instead, he makes up the worst fake-story in the world, claiming that he's a "traveler" from "far away", that just happened to end up in the old town without papers during a state of martial law.

-Bill is immediately thrown into a holding pen with a bunch of dissidents.

-"I need to see Pertinax"
"yeah, sure. Look, you'll get your turn being interrogated"
"Can I be interrogated first??"
"are you mental?!"

-"So you're saying that you just happened to get on the same bus as Ack'basha?"
"Yes, and some Fishmen were there with him"
"Did you overhear the names of any of these fishmen?"
"One of them I think was called Gadolfo"
Fishman's player: "SON OF A BITCH!"
Gadolfo's Player: "Gadolfo isn't a fishman, he's a boat-swine!"
Bill: "Sorry, gadolfo!"
Fishman: "He's been here ONE session and everyone knows his name?!"

-The Minotaur interrogator/torturer doesn't believe Bill's story about being an innocent witness. He shows bill the instruments of torture. Bill immediately betrays the location of the entire party.

-Back in the attic, the rest of the PCs can hear the explosions in the distance.
"That's Bill."
"Yup."
"Think he's accomplished anything?"
"Nope."
"Me neither."

-A Minotaur Police SWAT team raids the safehouse; the PCs hope they won't be detected, but suddenly, there's a flash of light and an enraged Minotaur in a clown costume is in the attic with them, attacking.

-Bill is hiding near the safehouse, trying to decide if he can, and if he should bother, trying to save the rest of the party. He tries to cast a cantrip distraction, and his 'student activist' friend pulls a gun on him.
"Ohhh, you work for the Minotaurs! You're an undercover agent!"
"That's right, and you're under arrest!"
"OK. You should know though... I'm Bill the Elf."
"...I.. what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to surrender! Take me to Pertinax!"

-The rest of the party managed to kill the Minotaur clown, but now the SWAT team of highly trained heavily-armed Minotaur Police are right inside the house, with seemingly no escape.

And on that bombshell, we ended the session! Stay tuned next time for more exciting DCC adventures!